Nitrate Vulnerable Zones

Indeed, and such planting might adversely affect the optimum rotation for the farm. The loss of over-wintering stubble would lead to a significant loss of habitat for farmland birds, just as set-aside is coming to an end. The environmental damage from such a proposal—as my hon. Friend the Member for Stone said, it is in other respects encouraged by DEFRA—would far outweigh the tiny reduction in nitrate. The proposal should be dropped, and I very much hope that the Minister will indicate that he is minded to do so. Finally, the imposition of a new record-keeping regime provides a further major set of proposals for farmers to contend with. It takes red tape to new dimensions, even for this Government. Those of a sensitive disposition may need to hold their noses when working through the excruciating details of the records required to be kept to comply with the provisions set out in the statutory instrument. I read them with mounting alarm. Such records include not just what manure is stored, but what is spread and where. They must all be kept for five years. Maps hatched in specified colours must be prepared and risk assessments undertaken, including a physical inspection, which must be recorded before spreading takes place in accordance with the map. Calculations for storage must be made in accordance with the schedule, which sets out how much manure each size, type and age of animal or bird excretes—a word that I had not intended to use in the Chamber until today. Did you know, Sir Nicholas, that a laying hen excretes 120 g a day and that a duck excretes 400 g? However, a large suckler cow excretes an average of 45 kg a day, each and every day; over 11 days, that is equivalent to its body weight. That is according to DEFRA. Failure to comply is an offence, with penalties of up to two years in prison. That is taking micro-management to a ludicrous level. Farmers, particularly livestock farmers, have a better understanding of how their animals behave, including how they defecate, than bureaucrats in Whitehall. Farmers should be trusted with a system of spot checking to ensure compliance, not compelled to spend endless spare time—time that they do not have—tied up in keeping essentially pointless records. Please rethink that, too, Minister. Another consequence of the proposal is the impact on the production of home-grown milling wheat of bread-making quality. I have some personal knowledge of that, having grown milling in preference to feed varieties of wheat on my farm for 20 years. UK flour millers require wheat with bread-making characteristics, which include a high level of good quality protein. The varieties of milling wheat presently available mean that, to achieve the required protein level, more than a third of UK crops will need more than 280 kg per hectare of nitrogen and 25 per cent. will require more than 300 kg per hectare. Milling wheat achieves a premium price for farmers, which can be achieved only if it meets the millers' high standards. Last year, wheat was grown on some 1.826 million hectares in the United Kingdom, of which approximately 35 per cent. had bread-making potential. Those farmers whose soils or land quality require higher than the proposed maximum 260 kg per hectare of nitrogen inputs to achieve those standards will be encouraged to grow more feed wheat varieties, thus lowering their returns and reducing the supply of home-grown quality wheat for the mills. That will increase our imports of such wheat from France, Germany, Canada and other countries. British farmers have supplied an increasing proportion of domestic demand, which was estimated by the milling industry at 85 per cent. last year, with imports declining over the years from 70 per cent. to 15 per cent. Did the Minister's environmental impact assessment consider the cost of the increased food miles and the associated carbon footprint increase that will result from reversing that trend, possibly to the point where the majority of the flour needed to make bread or cakes to feed the British public must be imported? Does the Minister remember what happened to Marie Antoinette when she was held responsible for rising bread prices?